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Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Still two weeks from the official start of the season, the fall nightmare is already beginning for Fox. Utopia (0.9) was down more than 50% from its post-NFL preview on Sunday.I thought I was down on the show, but I expected it could manage low-to-mid-1's in these preseason weeks before collapsing sub-1 later. Even that was a wild overestimate. To cap it off, Hotel Hell (0.9) fared badly at 9/8c in a special Tuesday airing.

If there's any silver lining, it's that it may not drop as much as expected once the regular season starts, because CBS is throwing a great deal of special Big Brother (2.3) at the show during these preseason weeks. But CBS did terrible numbers leading out of BB with a two-hour special called Fashion Rocks (0.6).

Cable: FX brought back the ever-strengthening Sons of Anarchy (3.2) for its last season. This was the fourth straight SoA premiere to hit a new series high.

FULL TABLE:

Info

Show

Timeslot

True

A18-49

Skew

Last

LeLa

Rank

y2y

TLa

Ty2y

Extreme Weight Loss

1.1

35%

+22%

+0.2

n/a

4/13

n/a

+10%

+10%

1.3

Shark Tank (R)

1.0

37%

+11%

+33%

1.2

ABC:

+10%

+16%

Big Brother Wed

2.3

43%

+0%

+0.0

n/a

1/12

+0%

+70%

+109%

2.7

Fashion Rocks

0.6

33%

n/a

-52%

-27%

0.7

CBS:

-9%

+27%

Food Fighters

1.0

29%

-9%

-0.1

n/a

5/8

n/a

-9%

-35%

1.2

America's Got Talent Tue

1.9

25%

+6%

+0.1

-0.1

13/14

-17%

+7%

-16%

2.3

NBC:

+3%

-21%

Utopia Tue

0.9

46%

-55%

-1.1

n/a

2/2

n/a

+20%

-33%

1.1

Hotel Hell

0.9

47%

-31%

-0.4

-1.0

8/8

n/a

+64%

-33%

1.1

Fox:

+38%

-33%

Arrow (R)

0.2

29%

+0%

-73%

0.2

Supernatural (R)

0.2

37%

+0%

-50%

0.3

CW:

+0%

-65%

Big5:

+5%

-15%

KEY (click to expand)

A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.Skew - Percentage of adults 18-49 within the show's total viewership.Last - A18-49 difference (percent and numerical) from the show's previous episode.LeLa - A18-49 difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes so far this season.y2y - Percent difference between A18-49 and the show's rating a year ago.TLa - Percent difference between A18-49 and the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.Ty2y - Percent difference between A18-49 and the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.True - A metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in. PRELIMINARY CALCULATION. For finals, see SpotVault.

Tuesday:Fall: Masterchef Jr. + New Girl/ The Mindy ProjectWinter: American Idol + Hell's Kitchen (The Voice is on hiatus at this time so it's not a horrible place to put Idol)Spring: Glee + New Girl/ The Mindy Project (I know... but I don't know what else to do here)

Yeah, that looks about right. I figured that there had to be a season of Hell's Kitchen sitting around somewhere. I also wondered how soon Glee would be ready to go (not that it's going to do much better, but at least they're contractually obligated to air that).

I suspect Glee also does better on the ever so valuable 18-34 demo. Not well, but better (which isn't saying much I know).

Regarding Hell's Kitchen, its seasons are usually ~20 episodes, so there would be no time to air it all in the fall especially as baseball takes over in the middle of it. So I think it needs a new slot to air the remainder of the season in the winter. Tuesdays sounds about right. I doubt they want to air repeats of new girl and mindy.

Fox could either put MasterChef Jr. or Glee on Tuesdays at 8:00 as a quick, promotable solution. Considering MasterChef Jr. wasn't even scheduled to launch until November I'm sure that was on their radar. Reconstituting a comedy block with The Last Man on Earth & Weird Loners takes more lifting from a promotional standpoint.

I've already discussed omabin schedule and I quite like it, it seems like one of the best options for FOX to not get worse in an already thrown away year.

We've seen FOX symptons of decline since 2011, first the post-World Series drop that hurt New Girl, then Idol going down 30% and losing to TBBT for the first time, then X-Factor failure, then Idol losing to TBBT repeats and losing its big hit status, The Following and New Girl sophomore slumps, Glee going straight from hit to flop among other things that led to a general collapse.

Today's FOX resembles me of 08-09 NBC (which were their worst years of a collapse that began after Friends series finale), their lone bright spot was The Office (does FOX have a non-animatedf bright spot now?), Heroes started to slump and Law & Order SVU was their "Bones" and Jay Leno Show their daily "Utopia" (at least Utopia leaves only two holes, not five), today's FOX didn't even have a transition period of losing every veteran hit/solid performer in a short span (Friends, Fraiser, Will and Grace, The West Wing and other that NBC lost in just 2 years), they've gone straight to the worst years.

FOX new command is now aligned with their studios, which means they'll prioritize in-house productions and formats that are easier to the masses, but the masses are not in the network right now.

Then, my question is: how long FOX will take to rebuild and bring the casuals back to the network? It took 7-8 years to NBC, and there is no guarantee there will be an "Idol" to help them, let alone a "The Voice".

Fashion Rocks....not so much for the Crime Broadcasting Syndicate. As much as I have been down on Utopia the moment I first heard about it being on FOX' Fall schedule, I never anticipated it doing as poorly so soon, either.

+1 on Fox's lack of depth. Waking up to the overnight ratings calls for any day other than Sunday and Monday are going to be really jolting this Fall.

Technically Almost Human was a league-average show, and I consider its NFL-boosted Sunday debut to be canceled out by the lows during its Winter Olympics airings. Still, if Fox thought to schedule Utopia as it did due to a lack of faith then having Almost Human in the chamber would certainly be better than the Glee that'll show up this season.

Four years ago, The X Factor premiered with 4.4 in A18-49. It turned out to be worth 186 in A18-49+. Yet, both Cowell and Fox were disappointed, as it was bellow their expectations.Yesterday, in a regular timeslot premiere Utopia got 0.9, which will be something like 53 in A18-49+. That's behind awful.

Friday best case: It airs throughout entire fall (maybe even 2-hours because MasterChef Junior is now probably on Tuesday 8 PM), but is then cancelled. Of course, there's absolutely no it's on air comes midseason.Friday worst case: Friday airings are doing worse than Gotham / Sleepy Hollow repeats are - both hours of Utopia are cancelled already in October.

I don't see any chance of B99 moving to Fridays. Also, this is a personal thing but I don't see Backstorm being nearly strong enough to anchor Mondays like that by itself. The Bones-Backstorm pairing is much more obvious to me.

And don't you have too little Idol hours there? I didn't sum them up just had that feeling-

It's very likely B99 would end on Friday. Something simply gotta go to Friday from Sunday, Fox must make room for sampling backup comedies. Scenarios are:0.0001% - The Simpsons & Family Guy go to Friday.99% - B99 & Mulaney go to Friday.1% - All Sunday comedies rate good, so they restore 2nd comedy block on Tuesday in midseason.

No, I have 37 hours of Idol there. That's exactly reason I expect such a schedule - with Bones and Idol, it's easier to fit 10 episodes of Wayward Pines on Thursday, than it's Backstorm's 13. Besides, it's more logical to put little buzzed Backstorm on Monday, than no-buzz-at-all "Wayward".

Regarding Idol, last year they had 56.5 hours on the schedule. Considering this year they will have even more holes on the schedule and be rating even worse overall, Idol will likely become even more valuable to them, even if it continues to decline at a horrible pace, which means I don't think it's likely that FOX cuts down its hours by 35% which is what your schedule is implying. I don't actually watch Idol so I don't know enough about the different "rounds" of the shows to know whether or not your cuts would work but I doubt FOX gives away those hours.

In my opinion, Wayward Pines has more buzz than Backstorm, which I see like a blend of The Finder and Rake, and we all know how those turned out to be. It's also more of a high stakes big concept dramas that FOX likes to put on Mondays so damn much.

As for B99 going to Fridays, we are talking about FOX here. This is the network that sent Enlisted to die on Fridays even when it had Dads on Tuesdays. It's also the same network that has canned comedies without even airing them for the past two years (The Goodwin Games, Us and Them, also a cartoon if I am not mistaken?). So 1) They are willing to send newbies to die on Fridays; 2) They are willing to kill newbies without even airing them and 3) They are not willing to move veterans for newbies in the middle of the season if they are not very confident in the newbies. There are a lot of other possibilities for them to schedule than sending B99 to Fridays:- Sending the newbies there- Ending Mindy's order sooner, plugging Weird Loners there and having 30 minute Idol come back and put Last Man on Earth there- Axing Weird Loners or Last Man on Earth before even starting it and do one of the options from the previous point for them- Axe Mulaney soon enough to allow for a double pump of B99 in some weeks in such a way that they are able to do TS+Last Man on Earth+FG+Bordertown at midseason. Burn Weird Loners after new girl or in the summer- Having the tuesday comedy hour return

At upfronts Reilly said: Idol is trimming down, plan is 37 hours, but that's not set in stone.Sure, there was change of the regime since... but so far they changed not a bit of Reilly's schedule.

Wayward Pines and Backstrom are not so important as it might seem from our posts: On a struggling network, but still pushed to the midseason. Frenkly, both seems as bubble shows at best. Not looking good, because new regime always look to cancel as much as possible of shows picked by former president.

I did not know that Idol said the plan was for 37 hours. I don't think that makes a whole lot of sense on struggling FOX kind of climate unless they are doing it explicitly to protect Idol and make sure it's still a reliable, if not a hit, player in the future (somehow mirroring ABC cutting down the hours of DWTS).

I still find it hard to believe they would cut it 35% on a year like this. Maybe they even make spring schedule assuming so and then simply cancel the lowest rated of the three midseson dramas (Wayward Pines, Backstorm, Empire) and replace it with more Idol hours.

Yes, mirroring DWTS is idea.Yes, by no means is 37 hours exact exact number, just tentative.Moreover, this was the first time they didn't sell Idol ads at upfronts - because they had no fixed schedule for it.

However, everyone is assuming that's Wed/Thu, because The Voice is Mon/Tue. Why not 2-hours on same day like DTWS? Because Reilly said they want Empire to lead out of Idol. Music themed Wednesday then it is.